Carl Sandburg, in every sense, was a man of the people. He worked countless labor jobs as a young man like delivering milk, harvesting ice, and shining shoes. The experience that undoubtedly shaped Sandburg the most as a poet was traveling around the country as a hobo. He slept outdoors, ate what he could, met fascinating strangers, and learned music he would later perform in front of huge audiences. This shaped Sandburg’s attitude that the capitalist system was inherently flawed, so he became an avid socialist. Sandburg became obsessed with portraying the common man in a way everyone could understand, writing hundreds of poems of social inequality to convey to plight of the American worker.